


The Older Brother

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 03:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7784998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A parent should never have favourites.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Older Brother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Nick has never much liked the story of the Prodigal Son.

* * *

The young woman is carefully blank as she sits at the table in the interrogation room, her hair scraped back, her hands folded on the table. There’s no outrage, no frustration, just the patient expression of someone who’s familiar with waiting for the bureaucracy to plod its way through.

Nick look at her and wonders where she learned patience. “Cops, military police, or interrogation?”

She doesn’t look like an international saboteur or a spy – then again, they never do. This one’s a white female, brown and blue, with no distinct facial indicators. Not so pretty she’ll be noticed, not so ugly that people will remember her clearly, and with a stillness about her, like prey waiting to be passed over by the hunter.

Considering she upstaged a coup that’s been three months in the planning, Nick figures this is camouflage.

So the answer from his companion is surprising.

“Social services.” The woman scrolls through the e-dossier they’ve been compiling ever since the situation came to boiling point fifty-seven hours ago and they realized that one of the players had dealt herself into the hand without asking first.

A wild card changes the game, and goddamn it looks like this one’s been changed well and good.

“Social services?”

“She was in the foster system at thirteen, stuck it out to eighteen, joined the military.” A smile curves faintly on the withered face. “It seems they were grooming her for Intel and Operations when she punched out an instructor for making sexual advances.”

Interesting. And yet, even with the new intel, she doesn’t look any more dangerous. “Court martial?”

“Dishonorable discharge. It turns out he’d been making these advances for a while – and generally being a pest – and was on their ‘last chance’ list. Her list of missions and involvement was interesting though...” One nail indicates several lines in the dossier, and Nick blinks. The kid was involved in _that_?

Some of what went down last night is beginning to make a terrifying kind of sense.

“So what was she doing in Cuba?”

“Her visa says ‘vacation’, if you can believe that.” Brown eyes twinkle. “Care to read the file, Deputy Director?”

Nick snorts. He’s already read it, and apart from reading the compiled documents, he can read the elderly woman who may not technically outrank him anymore, but whose advice he’d be an idiot not to take given what she’s endured and how far she’s come. “Don’t see the point, ma’am. You’ve already made up your mind.”

“You were a fighter.” The smile is faint and glittering. “So is she.”

* * *

Nick likes to take a look at the recruits out of the Academy each year. Start with their application, review their in-class scores, move to observing their exercises, and note which agent picked which recruit for further training.

It’s not his job, perhaps, but he likes to think of it as a kind of perk.

“Who’s that working with May?”

Coulson looks up, frowns a moment. “Maria Hill. Marines. She came recommended by Director Carter off a mission in Cuba.”

“We have no missions in Cuba.” It’s an automatic response.

Coulson doesn’t drop the ball for a moment. “Then it _wasn’t_ on one of those missions that the former Director noticed her and recruited her.”

Nick remembers. He studies the slim figure who’s tugging on her S.H.I.E.L.D-issue ball-cap as she squints into the sun, trying to place the target. It’s not stillness this time, but it’s the same calculation, the same consideration, the same air of patient waiting.

“She’s solid,” Coulson offers.

“My ass is solid, Coulson. Give me more.”

“Intelligence training with Logistics experience; it reflects in her results.”

“Intel and Logistics isn’t enough for May to take her on.”

“Excellent hand-eye co-ordination, above-average spatial awareness. Vehicular sim scores through the roof; the practicals only marginally less.”

“What’s the catch?”

“The usual. She doesn’t do people.”

“I thought the usual around here was bucking authority.”

Coulson smiles faintly. “Okay, so, _not_ the usual.”

Nick watches the young woman as she goes through the training exercise. She correctly identifies the mission objective, then deals with the two complications that arise on the way – perhaps a little ruthlessly, Nick thinks, but she’s been in the world and had to deal hard from the deck.

As she waits for May’s critique of her execution of the exercise, her gaze drifts across the field, watching, noting, and Nick wouldn’t be surprised to find that she’s cataloguing people as she goes.

Does her gaze pause a little longer on him and Coulson? Maybe. But she gives him a brief nod before turning to her Supervising Officer – as though he’s the new recruit and she’s the Senior Agent.

–

By the time she’s made Level Three, Nick has begun co-opting her for his missions. May is stepping back, contemplating family and parenthood. Hill has been working with various other parties, and their opinions more or less match Coulson’s from those early days: _doesn’t do people._

That’s not to say that she _can’t_ ; just that she prefers not to.

Nick gets a look at this during the gala where she’s playing the pretty ornament on an up-and-coming political aide’s arm, laughing and flirting and chatting like she was born to money – if you ignore the slightly cool look in her eyes as she sips from her champagne glass. Give her full due, she’s not bad at faking it. And while Nick is drawing attention as the big, black man with the eye-patch, she’s watching the room shift and shimmer with politics that could make or break the next steps that Nick wants to take.

“Malick wasn’t happy to see you.”

“He never is.”

“I think there’s a little more reason for his displeasure right now, though. Rumor has it, the Red Room has imploded.”

Nick frowns. “That happened a decade ago – and more. They kept it running for maybe a decade after the Soviet Union fell, but eventually it had to collapse under the weight of it’s own secrets.”

The irony of his statement isn’t lost on him, but he keeps his amusement to himself.

“The organization, perhaps, but the people who made it up...?” She pulls up a set of photos on the computer monitor. “These eight former...employees of the KGB have turned up dead in the last six months. Two shootings, three stabbings, one strangling, one induced heart attack, and one vehicular – and there are indications that the vehicular was caused by an induced heart attack. All were associated with the work at the Red Room. The files on the deaths are linked to the photos.”

He reads through the reports, noting that she’s tagged where the report came from and when it was logged. “A former alumni?”

“Certainly someone carrying a grudge.” Hill is watching him closely. “How many of the Red Room operatives does S.H.I.E.L.D know survived?”

Nick considers the question – or, rather, considers how much to tell her. “A few. Most of them have gone under, although we’ve encountered one or two in the course of operations.”

And are trying to take them out of the game. Director Carter warned her successors that the Red Room was dangerous. She recognized that the Red Room played to a particular hole in the American Intelligence psyche: the dismissal and refusal to acknowledge the part women could play in the game of intelligence politics – not only as soft power, but also out in the field, if not necessarily in a warzone.

He still remembers her snap at former Director Finkel’s comment about Russian ‘Mata Haris’: _One of those ‘Russian Mata Haris’ managed to get Howard Stark declared a national traitor – and Howard wasn’t half the idiot you are!_

Nick likes to think of himself as a modern man, respectful of what a woman can do – everything a man can, only backwards, and in high heels. He doesn’t share Director Carter’s fierce wariness of the so-called ‘Black Widows’, but then, he’s never personally run afoul of them before. And, too, he has plenty of agents who are no less deadly for being the female of the species, whatever their male counterparts might sometimes think.

“Encountered.” Hill looks at Nick, that direct blue gaze that doesn’t _quite_ demand answers of him. “How many agents did we lose?”

“Six.”

“Huh.” Her eyes narrow, focusing on nothing – a memory? A thought? Then she shrugs away whatever passed through her mind and quirks a wry smile. “A pity we can’t get our hands on one.”

* * *

_Be careful what you wish for_ is the old saying, right?

The young woman is a blank as she sits at the table in the interrogation room, her hair long and loose, a fiery cascade down over her shoulders, her pose casually slouched, as though she’s drinking at a bar.

Nick looks at her and wonders what she’s thinking. Unlike the woman standing beside him, he can’t just ask – or, he could ask, but he couldn’t necessarily trust the answer. “Target, escape, or reverse interrogation?”

Hill doesn’t seem surprised to be asked the question. “Our intentions or hers?”

“Hers.”

“Why not all of the above?” The smile is slight, nothing more than a brief twist of her mouth. “Although I imagine she already knows what she thinks she needs to know about us, given that she followed Barton home.”

And Barton’s on probation right now, under scrutiny for the target he chose to turn, on what was supposed to be a termination mission. The covert turning of operatives may no longer be the meat and milk of the intelligence community, but it’s still a fairly essential part of national and international security.

It’s not so much that Barton dragged in a stray, or even that the stray is Natasha Romanoff, the last known Black Widow.

It’s that, in the last few years, rather more has been uncovered about the Red Room – namely that the program was a litle more rigorous than teaching young women how to become undercover operatives. Ugly rumours of brainwashing and triggers have been whispered of among intelligence operatives throughout the world. At least three former KGB operatives have gone batshit insane, and their ramblings speak of psychological scars that go down to bedrock, and trauma barely buried deep enough for operatives to complete the missions.

The truth is that, at this point in time, bringing Romanoff in is a crapshoot, and Nick neither needs the shit, nor the shot.

“Do we have any indication of how much of her might be scrambled?”

Not _whether_ she’s scrambled, but _how much_. Nick approves of the perspective. “Guess you’ll find out when you run her through deprogramming.”

Hill looks sharply at him. “Me?”

“She’ll have to go through it. And you suggested we should get our hands on one.”

“It was theoretical.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “It’s not theoretical anymore, is it?”

“Nope.” says Nick.

* * *

It takes nearly four months of brutal deprogramming, a morass of psychological and mental triggers, enough patience to fill the Baltic Sea, and a surprising friendship to scrape together enough of Natasha Romanoff to make an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D that they can trust.

Once she’s vetted and checked out and tested down to her psychological bedrock, though, trust comes easy.

Romanoff is good with weapons and with words; a slick seductress, and a brisk businesswoman. She fits into the teams out in the field and the agents at their meetings. She’s friendly enough at the STRIKE teams so they play well with her, but takes out enough targets to persuade keep their distance. She’s politic and political, canny as a cat, and the most beautiful woman in the world.

Nick finds himself charmed – well, it’s difficult not to be, isn’t it? That’s what she was made to do: fit in, charm those around her, betray their secrets. So she’s good at it.

She and Hill make a good team out in the field – professional women who don’t need to make it personal, although Fury sees enough that he’s pretty sure they’re solid friends. It’s just not ‘friends’ in a way that most men are s going to think of as ‘female.’

Then again, they’re not ‘female’, they’re ‘agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’.

And they’re _his_.

Nick doesn’t realize quite how much until Hill vanishes in Italy – last seen at dinner, absent from breakfast the next morning. Her last report was on a section of Italian Mafia that was no longer content to deal in laundered money and bought thuggery, but was looking at branching out.

It does not behoove the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D to roust the European office on a manhunt, but Hill is nothing if not reliable and he has a really bad feeling about this. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Maria or her skills, it’s just that...he’s invested a lot of time and energy into her, and he’d like to see a return on his investment.

Nothing more.

So, perhaps his certainty is a little shaken when Hartley calls him – direct line – and tells him what she’s found. “It’s not pretty.”

“It never is.”

He doesn’t think about what prompts him to drop what he’s doing to head into the French Pyrenees. He doesn’t think about what he’s doing or why. If he did, he’d justify it by saying he’s given a lot to this organization – nearly everything that he is and has and will have – so taking a little bit back is nothing.

It’s not even for him. Not really.

But, two weeks later, when he calls Hill into his office after she's returned from medical leave, she sits down in the chair across from his desk and studies him for a long moment. And although Nick doesn’t say what he’s done, he'd bet she comprehends perfectly.

* * *

Alex pauses in the act of lighting his cigar, and shoots him a disbelieving look. “You’re kidding me.”

Nick points at his face. “Do I look like a kidding man?”

“An entire organization’s worth of the best intelligence agents in the world, and this is what you come up with?”

“She _is_ the best.”

“She’s a bureaucrat.”

“So are you, according to the title.”

The snort is distinctly un-secretarial. “Is this one of those equal opportunity things, Nick? Because that’s unlike you.”

Nick is tempted to point out that it’s _very_ like him. It’s just not what Alex has come to expect of him.

“Deputy Director Maria Hill,” Alex mutters, as though trying on the name. “Is she even old enough to drink? At least get someone who’s got some experience under their belt!”

The thing is, Hill _has_ experience – and, moreover, the kind of breadth and depth of experience that is more than equal to that of the candidates he’s pretty sure Alex would prefer Nick promote.

“You don’t get to veto my decision, Alex. Informing you of my choice of Deputy Director is a courtesy, not a submission for approval.”

“Just as well for you and her.” His friend scowls at the glass of whiskey. “If you were going to pick a woman, why the hell not Romanoff?”

Because Romanoff is younger and her experience is specific to the field. Because Romanoff _isn’t_ the all-around best, just one of the best operatives they have. Because Romanoff is, when all is said and done, a turned Russian spy, albeit one who Nick trusts with his life.

His life is one thing. S.H.I.E.L.D as an organisation to protect the world is another.

And yes, there are agents like Phil Coulson and John Garrett, Victoria Hand and Isabelle Hartley. All of whom are extremely good at what they do, but who don’t always have the big picture in mind, can’t keep two steps ahead, and aren’t always willing to let loose on him. Hill does.

Plus, there’s a part of him – an ornery part of him – that likes the idea of ruffling feathers. In spite of S.H.I.E.L.D being an equal-opportunity employer as much as is possible in spirit as well as in letter, there are still plenty of people who won’t cut him slack because of the color of his skin.

Not that they’d admit to that.

Not that Nick would admit to giving them the finger in promoting a perfectly capable – if non-entity – young woman to one of the highest command positions in the organization.

Besides, she deserves it.

* * *

Hill pauses in the doorway on her way out.

“Got the code?”

She flips up the pocket flap to show the drive with the subversion program.

“Weapon?”

She taps the gun at her hip.

“Spares?”

Her head tilts. “I even packed my own lunch and tied my own shoelaces.”

Silence falls at the quip, a discomforting acknowledgement that neither of them have ever voices aloud. And for all that Nick tries not to think of it as a betrayal, he supposes a part of him is going to think it all the same – especially when she followed Natasha in taking Rogers’ side on this.

_I half-expected to lose Natasha after New York, but you won't get Maria, too._

It’s the wrong way to think about Maria – or Natasha, come to that. But some things are stronger than logic, and maybe it’s the injuries and the fact that he’s seeing the end of something he thought would outlast him, something he worked at to help the world, not harm it the way HYDRA has turned it around, but right now is Nick struggling with feelings he doesn't usually give rein.

“You know the story of the Prodigal Son,” he says after a moment.

“Sure. Kid leaves home, spends his inheritance on beer and prostitutes, comes wailing home to daddy, who takes him back and throws a party.”

“Right. Thing is, in the story in the bible, the kid has a brother. Brother sticks with dad, does the work, and comes home to find the party in full swing. He gets grumpy that his good-for-nothing brother got the party, and he goes out and sulks. So his dad comes out to find him. Tells him, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours, but your brother’s back when we thought he was dead in a ditch somewhere, so we’re having a hoedown. End of story.”

“Cheerful.”

“My point is that everyone talks about the Prodigal. Nobody remembers the older brother. But I do.”

From the look on her face, she doesn’t know what to do with that. Truth is, Nick isn’t sure what he wants her to do with that. It just feels...important that she knows it.

“Maria, you ready to go?” Rogers pauses in the doorway. “Nick.”

“Rogers.”

Rogers glances at Maria, as though not quite sure what he’s interrupted. Which is just as it should be. Nick waves a hand at them, intentionally autocratic. “Go get your costume, Rogers. But, Hill.” She pauses. He looks her in the eye. “I’ll remember.”

A smile flickers, faint and glittering. “Thank you, sir.”


End file.
